


Turned to Lead

by illwynd



Series: 30 Day OTP Porn Challenge [6]
Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Clothing, Consent Issues, Frottage, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Muteness, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 22:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illwynd/pseuds/illwynd
Summary: Thor is an Avenger on Earth, Loki is a villain, they fight, Thor pleads with Loki to mend his ways, Loki answers with anger and yet more villainy and always escapes at the end of their battles.Then one day Thor realizes something is wrong: Loki has ceased speaking entirely.





	Turned to Lead

**Author's Note:**

> So I have been having a craving for old-school Avengers 1-era Thorki fic where all the Avengers live in the tower and Loki is a villain but sometimes turns up in Thor's room just because. 
> 
> Turns out I had a few fics like that stashed away in my unfinished folders from years ago. This is one of them.
> 
> It was originally written for the 30 days OTP porn challenge, prompt "Out-of-character clothing"

Thor was not sure precisely when it began.

He could remember during their battles some time ago shouting demands for Loki to cease his destructive madness on this realm, and he had received no reply. At the time his eyes had narrowed at the silent rebuff, grumbling to himself over Loki’s childishness in giving him the cold shoulder.

The next time it had happened—or _not_ happened, the angry replies he expected never materializing—he had thought perhaps it was part of some ploy of the trickster’s; Thor could see no gain in it, but that was not proof that there was none to be had, as years of experience with his brother had shown.

It was not until others began to comment on it that Thor began to wonder.

The middle of a fight, and his communicator crackled with the whine of an arrow’s release. “I gotta say, the quiet is fucking refreshing. Whatever’s shut him up, I hope it stays that way.”

There was something in the way it was said that gave Thor pause.

*

When several more such incidents had made it perfectly clear that something had stilled Loki’s tongue, Thor could not stop himself from seeking his brother out.

In response he received a glare and a tapping foot as they stood in the shadows where he had tracked Loki down after their last battle, and though it might only have been the gloom and his own fears that made it seem so, his brother looked paler and more gaunt than usual.

“Has someone done something to you, brother?” Thor asked, studying Loki’s form, seeking some hint of what had happened to make him fall silent. “Is it a spell you cannot counter by your own power? Is that why you do not speak?”

Loki stared at him but did not answer, leaving Thor no choice but to stumble verbally on.

“If it is so… I will help you to find assistance.”

Loki shook his head sharply, as Thor had thought he might. Of course Loki would always be so stubborn.

Thor gestured reassurance, hands lifted, palms out. “You need not surrender yourself. We need not even return to Asgard. I am sure we can find some aid for you here if you will agree to try. I know you disbelieve it, but the Midgardians are clever people, and they have many good mages among them.”

Loki visibly bristled, but then he rolled his eyes and shook his head again, even more forcefully.

“Loki, please, if you are unable to help yourself, you must let…”

Loki was giving him a look, though. Thor paused, thinking.

“So you mean to refuse? Or are you saying that a spell is not the cause of your trouble?”

A gesture. _There. Yes. That._

Thor frowned. He could barely imagine what else could be the source of such an affliction. “Then… are you unwell?”

Loki’s reply was a scathing glance. Yet not a single sound from his once-silver tongue.

Thor was trying to think of where to go from there when Loki shoved him away bodily, took two steps, and disappeared in an air of annoyance.

Thor stumbled back to the Avengers tower, feeling his failure keenly.

*

“He’s probably under a lot of stress,” Natasha said over the rim of her coffee mug a few mornings later while Thor sat under a morose cloud of his brother’s mysterious troubles.

Thor looked up in confusion.

Natasha added, “I’ve seen that happen before.”

But to Thor’s mind, this was hardly an explanation. “Loki and I have both faced times of terrible strife and he has never ceased speaking during them. Nor has anyone else I have known. Perhaps that is only a mortal affliction.”

Natasha shrugged as she set her mug down on the tabletop. “From what I’ve seen, Thor, your minds work pretty much like ours. And minds are strange. Just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it never can. If he denies that it’s magic or a physical problem, that really seems the most likely possibility. Well. That or he’s doing it on purpose just to mess with you, but nobody else has heard him talking lately either.”

Thor thanked her for her input, but at first he still doubted, secretly.

When Loki stayed silent and did not give any sign of improving, though, he began to accept the idea. And then it began to worry him: perhaps Loki was truly distressed. And he could not ask for help now, even if he had been willing to seek it out. So how would he ever be eased of his troubles?

No, this did not sit well with Thor at all.

*

It was a lazy Saturday morning when it happened.

Saturday mornings, he had been informed by his mortal friends, were for sleeping in, possibly until it was no longer morning. It was a Midgardian custom that Thor found pleasant, so he was still in bed under a deep snooze when the sounds filtered into his awareness.

It was a quiet, unassuming rustle. Not loud enough (or suspiciously soft enough) to put him on alert. Just the noise of someone shuffling around in his bedchamber: the closet door swinging open, hangers rattling, drawers being pulled and shoved closed again.

Sleep clinging to him, unsure who might be rifling his wardrobe at such an hour, Thor pulled down the blanket and cracked a bleary eye open.

There was a full-length mirror mounted on the back of Thor’s closet door. And before it stood Loki, gazing at himself, running a hand along a leather stripe on the side of his leg. Smoothing down silver scale hanging more than slightly loose on his arms. Adjusting the collar of the tunic just beneath the curling ends of his inky hair.

The sight was so strange that Thor did not make a sound.

He could not imagine why Loki wanted to wear his clothes—the few peculiar suspicions that flashed through his mind seemed impractical and unlikely—yet this was a development more troubling than Loki’s sudden loss of words, and Thor looked on in silence as Loki continued to dress himself in Thor’s garments.

Loki adjusted the bracers on his arms, draped the red swath of cape over his shoulders and affixed it there carefully. He bent over and pulled on Thor’s boots. Slid the belt around his waist and had to tighten it before fastening, frowning a little at the evident difference in their sizes. Then he stood back and admired himself, arms folding across his chest in what should have appeared a powerful stance.

Uneasiness wriggled cold in Thor’s belly where he lay staring: he had known his brother for a thousand years, seen him in almost every possible state. Yet now he barely recognized him.

The man standing before the mirror was not a deadly serpent of green scale and whipcord strength and sinuous menace. Instead he was simply pale, Thor’s colors giving Loki’s complexion the washed-out look of someone long ill, with shadows around his eyes. Failing utterly to fill out the fitted shape of Thor’s tunic, he looked merely thin and small. Loki turned a little this way and that, and as he smiled at his image in the mirror he looked out of place and hopeful and dreadfully young. And then, seemingly satisfied, Loki wrapped his arms around himself, and his head dropped forward in a heaved sigh.

It was the last thing Thor would have ever expected, a sight he was not prepared for and could not understand: Loki, who avowed himself Thor’s enemy and placed everything Thor was at the top of his list of grievances, standing there in Thor’s clothes and hugging himself in mute silence.

Thor cleared his throat, voice rusty with sleep as he spoke. “Loki, why are you wearing my vestments?”

Loki’s eyes snapped open, and the moment of vulnerability vanished in an instant as he glared at Thor in the mirror’s reflection, but of course he did not answer. Instead he turned and strode to the foot of Thor’s bed with an imperious expression, head held high.

“You look strange, brother,” Thor said without thinking.

Loki scowled. Without another glance he went and picked up a dark bundle Thor had not noticed from the chair in the corner—the clothes Loki had shed to put Thor’s on—and threw it down on top of Thor’s knees. Snapped his fingers and pointed to it sternly.

Thor hardly had a choice but to obey.

*

Morning light filtered through the curtains of Thor’s bedroom and fell upon the mirror. In it stood Thor and Loki. Yet the sight of them was… odd. It was all wrong.

In black and green, Thor barely recognized _himself_. Where Loki looked washed out and innocent in his clothes, in Loki’s Thor looked somehow burnished, and his uncomfortable frown seemed to turn bitter and fierce. As one would expect, the tunic was tight on him around the arms and chest; he tugged awkwardly at the hems, but it did little good, and Loki’s hand came around to catch at his and stop it from fidgeting.

Over his shoulder, his brother made a quiet noise of humor. Yet at the same time he seemed fascinated by what he saw, and Thor tracked the motions of Loki’s eyes in the mirror. Loki leaned nearer, stood closer, put an arm around Thor’s waist and tilted his head as if amused at what a pair they made.

Thor could only wonder if, of all the times he had accused his brother of madness, he had ever understood what that might truly mean. And if Loki was now truly mad, that left Thor with no certainty at all of what he should do.

Loki had been all too eager to help him off with the pajamas he wore to sleep and to help him on with the black and green and gleaming gold, batting Thor’s hands out of the way as he fumbled with the buckles. At one point Loki wound up kneeling at Thor’s feet, practically, and he had smirked up, eyes glittering.

It had been undeniable then where Loki was going with this, and that had drawn Thor up short.

“Loki,” he’d said, interrupting Loki’s fixed attention on the task of adjusting his own tunic on Thor’s body. Loki had looked up, blinking.

It had been years since they’d been together in that way—since before Loki’s fall—and if Loki was truly so troubled now that even speech was beyond him, they should not be renewing those acts, that forbidden expression of their brotherhood. It would not be right. Thor should not allow it.

“Loki, I know you are not well,” Thor had said. “We needn’t… do this.”

Loki’s eyes hardened upon him into a glare that made Thor remember how quick Loki had always been to sense rejection and to be hurt by it.

Then Loki looked away, pulled a strap harshly tight, and began to ignore him.

And now they were standing before the mirror, Loki’s hands on him possessively—yet somehow still, effectively, ignoring him.

“I wish you could tell me what has happened, brother,” Thor said.

Loki’s only reply was to circle around before him and push him backward toward the bed that he had left such a short time before.

*

It had never been like this between them.

It was hard for Thor to remember exactly how it had been. The man he was then—the arrogant, brash, spoiled young prince… it had been only a few years, in truth, but it felt a lifetime ago. Distant. His memories were hazed over with frustration at his former self.

Yet it had certainly never been like this, with Loki shoving him down onto his back and crawling forward, menacing, until he knelt over him on his hands and knees, gazing down.  

“Loki…” Thor said haltingly.

Loki gave him an odd look and a little shake of the head. He gestured to himself, hand spread wide. Gleaming silver scale; vivid red and grey and subdued blue. _Don’t you see? Not Loki._

Before Thor could do more than frown, Loki’s lips came down to coax his open, tongue forcing its way inside as Loki’s hips ground slowly against him.

Uneasiness fluttered in Thor’s stomach at the sudden flash of understanding. There was no mistaking it: they had exchanged places in Loki’s mind. Loki was establishing his dominance the only way he could. Treating Thor as… as _himself_. Loki had always pushed; Thor had always pushed back harder. And that was what Loki did now, more literally, rocking their hips together and pinning Thor against the bed to do it. Loki was forceful in his silence and Thor’s body responded to that force, cock stiffening and heart pounding.

“Brother,” Thor said when Loki drew away for breath, “it need not be like this. I know something has distressed you, and I would not wish…”

Soft, mussed black hair in outline above him, and that outline twitched, halting, shifting as Loki fixed a strong grip on Thor’s wrists and yanked them up above his head, pushing them back into the mattress. Hips angling, a hard cock prodding at him through tight fabric, rough friction grinding against him.

Thor’s entire body hummed with desire. Yet his own armor brushed cool against his wrists where Loki pinned him, and uneasiness still buzzed in his belly. If something was wrong with Loki’s mind, he should not have been allowing this. He should have been finding a way to do something for him, even if Loki’s pride made him refuse the idea.

“Please,” he forced out between panting breaths. “I would help you, if you would only let—”

Thor found his wrists released and his head yanked back by the hair instead. His body drawn close by an arm snaking swiftly beneath his back. A mouth on his, silencing him, tongue invading again, coaxing Thor’s tongue to follow back into the cavern of Loki’s mouth.

When he did, Loki bit. Thor gave an indignant cry, tasting his own blood, tears springing to his eyes from the pain.

Clearly, Loki wanted him to be quiet as well. And he had needed no words to make the point or to make his wishes known.

Thor did not know what to do but to give in, to let Loki have his way.

It was something he had never really done before. Surrender was not in his nature, and whenever (quite often) their bedplay had led to scuffles, he had always fought until he proved himself the stronger. He remembered his cheeks burning, ashamed at the thought of letting his sly, clever younger brother master him. But Thor was that arrogant boy no longer.

Perhaps this was what Loki needed to heal himself—perhaps… perhaps this _was_ Loki asking for help and Thor had merely to go along with his demands. If this was a madness in his brother, perhaps in this way Thor could let him release it safely, like lancing an infection. Perhaps…

… not to mention that at this point, Thor _wanted_ to, undeniably. Heat radiated through their swapped clothes, and he could feel Loki’s heartbeat racing against his chest as Loki rutted stubbornly against him. Loki’s breath panted against his cheek and without his volition Thor’s hands rose to stroke down his brother’s body, along his own vestments. Thor studied his brother’s face, watching for signs of approval, though Loki did not meet his gaze. But there was the twitch of a brow. Faint splotches of red high upon his pale cheeks. The barest breath of a moan...

It was strange how erotic it all felt, rubbing against him like this, wordlessly. Thor felt naked despite the tightness of Loki’s garments, vulnerable with the sensation of submitting to his brother’s will, confused and uncertain and aroused. The silence and the friction. Heat and the first burst of sweat, and Loki sank down atop him, gripping tighter, rubbing more fervently. His mouth finding the sensitive skin of Thor’s neck and latching on there.

Thor could not help babbling out his brother’s name as he came, clutching Loki close, and heard the hitched half breath of Loki following right after.

Thor should not have been surprised when Loki spent only a few seconds like that, lying sprawled bodily across him. Loki had never been one for much closeness in the afterglow, and soon he was rolling to his feet with a little stretch and turning away.

There was no chance now, any more than there had ever been, of prevailing upon him to stay, but Thor propped himself up on his elbows as Loki put himself to rights, straightening his clothes and brushing fingers through his hair. It was so rare these days for Thor to have a chance to take in the sight of his brother in peace.

It was only when Loki was just about to depart that Thor started, alarmed.

“Loki,” he burst out, the thought only just occurring to him. “My vestments…”

Loki looked back at him and grinned, making no move to return them. Then, with a little wave and an embellished flare of magic, Loki was gone, and Thor was alone, still wearing his brother’s clothes. For that matter, with his own spill on his skin within them.

With a sigh, Thor sank back onto his pillow, closing his eyes and delaying the inevitable moment of rising and sorting things out. There was nearly something pleasant about the tightness of Loki’s garments on him, still warm from Loki’s body, his scent lingering. Almost like an embrace. And it was still Saturday morning.

_Silvertongue_ , Thor thought a little sadly as he drifted back into a doze for just a few minutes more.

*


End file.
